Parent and Child Volume III., Child Study and Training eBook

The other mistake is to employ unnatural or arbitrary
punishments. Even the smallest child has an instinctive
idea of justice and resents anything which he regards
as unjust. On the other hand, he learns quickly
the inevitableness with which pain follows the violation
of law, and how certain is the working out of cause
and effect.

Mrs. Harrison gives this admirable illustration:
“The little one puts his hand upon the hot stove;
no whirlwind from without rushes in and pushes the
hand away from the stove, then with loud and vengeful
blasts scolds him for his heedlessness or wrong-doing.
He simply is burned—­the natural consequences
of his own deed; and the fire quietly glows on, regardless
of the pain which he is suffering. If again he
transgresses the law, again he is burned as quietly
as before, with no expostulation, threat, or warning.
He quickly learns the lesson and avoids the fire thereafter,
bearing no grudge against it.”

When the child scatters her toys and playthings all
over the room, the natural penalty is to require that
they be gathered up and the room made tidy; when the
boy scampers across the newly-cleaned floor with his
muddy boots, he should be made to mop up the floor
carefully; thus in a thousand similar ways, the parent
may train the child to observe care and order in everything
done.

Nothing is more beautiful than a large family where
each child is taught to care for and to rely upon
himself, and to give a little willing service to others.
But the tired mother will remark, “Oh, yes, that
all sounds very nice, but mothers have no time to
spare to eternally watch and train their children.”
Hold a moment, there is a fallacy here; she ought to
say, “I have no time to spare because I failed
to train the children in the manner mentioned.”
In no other way can the mother save so much time as
by taking a little time at first to train the child
to be neat, tidy and orderly, or later to feel the
inevitable consequences of violating law.

Instead of saving time in this sensible way, too often
the mother loses both time and the love of her child
through becoming irritable and scolding the little
one for every offence committed. Nothing is worse
than scolding, a sound thrashing administered now
and then is far less cruel. Nearly every evil
instinct in the child is aroused through fault-finding
and scolding. How long will it take to teach
the parent, once for all, that scolding, nagging,
shutting up in the dark closets, and every other form
of arbitrary punishment arouse in the child a sense
of injustice and resentment, which, if not corrected
later, will result in estrangement and loss of love
between parent and child? The child has a right
to expect justice from his parent. Only where
this is found will the child develop that sense of
freedom and independence of thought and action which
produce the highest type of individual—­one
who is able to govern himself.